About competition and human concerns

I am obsessed with the news. It might be unhealthy, to be honest, but I feel a deep need to know what is going on in the world around me. I am not that interested in the personal/private lives of people, especially those I am not acquainted with. Thus, the chatty gossip and prurient details on the 'net are of little interest to me. But my heart gravitates to the perpetual human drama that is playing out around us: Ukraine, the hate-driven white-washing of our own country's "history" in many states, the unavoidable tragedy that is nature's reassertion of dominance--floods, fires, snow storms, hurricanes. Today is the one year "anniversary" of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it's got me thinking about competition and it's dire consequences.

Why? I have no answer to that. I need to physically pull myself away from the computer, to stop following the news feeds, or I get so angsty that I just can't function. It's really hard to put all that pain and discord up against, say, today's planned fun at school, with the winter carnival games. Part of me (the part I try to silence) is shouting that this class-against-class stuff is pointless, the tempests in small teapots over who didn't follow the rules, whose costumes count toward the class points-- all that ramped up and artificial drama. But kids love it, I suppose, but sometimes I wonder if, with our national obsession with competition, we are feeding the next generation's need for opposition. 

On the other hand, I love to watch professional sports. I watch, I cheer, I follow the stats-- is this a visceral need, or was I conditioned to think these things matter? Am I just acting out a human impulse, or am I a product of social codes? 

Is the tension we feed a genetic need, or is it something entirely constructed by our unwillingness to combat real problems? Wouldn't it be nice if we could see the climate degradation as a common foe, a battle we need to "win?" Or any other form of human misery, like gun violence or war? Or is the infliction of misery just part of this overarching game? 

This is a true tug-of-war, isn't it.

Take care,

C